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Monday, April 28, 2008

Finally, after many months, I am launching a somewhat finalized draft of the Anatomical Theatre website. Herein you will find an a expanded version of the physical exhibition, which features 64 photographs (the website features nearly 100!) of medical museum artifacts held in great collections in Europe and the United States. The artifacts range from preserved human remains to models made from ivory, wax, and papier mâché, with provenances spanning from the 16th to the 20th centuries. As much information as possible is coupled with each image. Visit the website to learn more about this project, find information about featured museums, and view the photographs.

Anatomical Theatre: Depictions of the Body, Disease, and Death in Medical Museums of the Western World is a travelling exhibition; next location to be announced.

Note: I attempted to include as much factual data as possible about the artifacts photographed. Often, I was the only one checking facts. if anyone comes across any mistakes please drop me a line and let me know.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Its not everyday that one gets news of an exhumed corpse being exhibited to hordes of tourists in a glass coffin; today, just such news came my way.

Yesterday, the corpse of Padre Pio was put on display in an elaborate glass-and-marble coffin after his body was removed from the vault in which had resided for 40 (!!!) years after his death at 81 years of age. His body was too far decayed, it is reported, to be exhibited without enhancement; his head is covered with a life-like silicon mask prepared by the company that supplies figures for Madame Tussauds; his true fingers are visible, blackened and half-hidden by half gloves. Reportedly, his hands do not bear the stigmata they often did in life.

He was exhumed, reports The Independent, "so the condition of the body could be ascertained before being consigned to its permanent home in a crypt under the town's vast modern church." (The report continues: "Officials who examined the corpse said it was in 'fair condition', apart from the head, much of which had been reduced to bare bone. A team of medical scientists and biochemists has been working since then to restore the corpse to a presentable condition.")

Padre Pio was an interesting and complex figure; In his time, he had a cult-like following that revered him as a saint, while others accused him of being a fake, even going so far as to accuse him of using carbolic acid to create the stigmata he famously displayed on his hands and feet. Pope John Paul II canonized him into sainthood in 2002.

The Los Angeles Times has a great article on this, from which this video (and much of the information in this post) is drawn; read it here.

Yes, yet MORE on the Japanese Anatomical Charts discussed in two recent posts (here and here). Now we have a translation! The folks at Pink Tentacle have written a full story on these charts, complete with names, dates, and history. They have even thrown in some newly reassembled images (see above).

We discover that these are called the Kaibo Zonshinzu Anatomy Scrolls (1819) and were painted by Kyoto-area physician Yasukazu Minagaki (1784-1825) under the tutelage of Dutch anatomist Philip von Siebold, the first European to teach Western medicine in Japan. We also learn that they are regarded as the finest collection of Japanese early 19th-century anatomical drawings, and that the subjects dissected and portrayed were "heinous criminals executed by decapitation."

So pleased that a translator was able to translate this page and answer so many of my questions. Check out the full story here. And see the original collection here.

In the science section of today's New York Times, there is an article about the amazing Bassett Stereoscopic Dissection Collection (as discussed in greater detail in a previous Morbid Anatomy Post.) The project was a collaboration between William Gruber, the inventor of the View-Master, and Dr. David L. Bassett of Stanford University. The product: the 25-volume “Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy” released in 1962 consisting of thousands of images illustrating human anatomy (see above) on hundreds of View-Master reels.

The article touches on the history of the project, the partnership between Bassett and Gruber, and how the collection was received when it was released. It goes on to detail Stanford University's plans to digitize the collection and charge access to it; those with 3d glasses will be able to view them on their computer in their original 3-dimensional glory.

Check out the full article here; check out the slide show here. And click here to see the Flickr page launched by Stanford to showcase the images.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Thanks to Peacay of Bibliodyssey for sending me the link to these surreally fascinating (and mysterious, as I understand no Japanese) Japanese Anatomical Charts. You can peruse them all (this is just a small sampling) here.

“I entered a display of waxworks; the entourage of the ruler looked very slutty and neglected. It was a terrible loneliness and I hastened through to a closed room with the collection of anatomy on display. There almost any part of the human body was to be found on display, made of wax, most of them in sick, terrible states, a really strange assembly of human conditions. A big part of that assembly was constituted of a long row of glasses which contained all the stages of a foetuses growth. Those weren't wax, but real beings and they were sitting in the alcohol like philosophers. Their thoughtfulness was all the more clear as those guys should have been the youth of that assembly. But suddenly in the hut right next to that there was loud music and drums an the wall shuddered and all the quiet attention vanished. Those little beings started to shiver and dance in a wild polca and soon there was anarchy, so I don't believe that this assembly ended with an address.” (Gottfried Keller, dream diary, S.93f)...

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The Getty Villa in Malibu, California has an interesting show up called "The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present." The exhibition showcases the many ways artists have used color in figural sculpture for centuries, and, to my excitement, includes an actual Anatomical Venus from the famed La Specola collection in Florence!

Anatomical Venuses are life-sized wax anatomical models of idealized women, extremely realistic in appearance and often adorned with real hair and ornamental jewelry. These figures consist of removable parts that can be "dissected" to demonstrate anatomy-- a breast plate is lifted to reveal the inner workings of the mysterious female body, often with a fetus to be found nestling in the womb (see before and after above). This was a way to share anatomical discovery with a larger audience without the need for an actual human dissection.

Anatomical Venuses are probably the most historically popular form of anatomical models; in the 19th-Century, they were the centerpiece of museums and itinerant shows of all kinds, and possessed great power to draw crowds. The 18th-Century Florentine Venuses are the best remembered today, in no small part due to Taschen's Encyclopaedia Anatomica,and are considered, by some, to be the finest examples of Anatomical Venuses known to exist.

This Anatomical Venus featured in the Getty show, completed in 1782 by Clemente Susini and his workshop, is truly a masterwork of the genre, and outshines the many copies held by medical museums throughout Europe who, impressed by the veracity and workmanship of the Florentine Venuses, commissioned their own from Susini's workshop. For example, the core of the collection of the Viennese Josephinum Museum consists of 1192 models commissioned by Emperor Joseph from the Susini workshop in 1784 for the training of his military doctors. As a body of work they are interesting, but somehow the models in this collection pale in comparison to the La Specola models. The workmanship is a bit shoddier, the visages a bit less alluring.

The Anatomical Venus exhibited in the Getty exhibition is one of the finest, and almost never leaves her home in Florence--she has only been transported twice in her long history, and even has a specially-built traveling case to protect her delicate wax body. This means that, sadly, you will not see her in her original setting--an elegant rosewood and Venetian glass case-- but the relative accessibility of the piece (i.e. in the United States) should make up for this lack.

It is really great to see anatomical models being seriously approached as artwork in an exhibition of this sort; I consider it a bold move on the part of the curators, and cannot help wondering what strings the curators had to pull in order to acquire one of these rare and fragile Venuses on loan. It is also nice to see that, in reviews of the show, the Venus seems to be a real standout. This supports my belief that, if more people knew of these Venuses and other anatomical models, they would be seen as intriguing artworks and cultural documents, worthy of a greater amount of study as well as inclusion in the medical art canon.

The two most impressive pieces of the whole exhibition, which may please even marble lovers, both shock and fascinate at the same time. One of them is an 18th-century wax model of a nude life-size woman called the “Anatomical Venus,” which shows the multicolored exterior and interior of a female body with an almost uncanny precision.

The strangest, without a doubt, is an 18th century wax figure known as the "Anatomical Venus": a comely young woman, life-sized and nude, lying prostrate on a pink silk cushion in what looks to be a state of sensual rapture, her torso flayed and all her glistening organs -- including a womb containing a tiny fetus -- revealed. Her long brown hair is real, her eyes are open and unfocused, and the cloth of her pillow is crumpled -- she might as well be writhing. The product of one sculptor's clearly intimate experience with cadavers, she suggests an Enlightenment-era St. Teresa ravished by communion with the invisible forces of science.

I just purchased a copy of the magazine, but I am dying to find a copy of the original comic book. If anyone has any leads on where to find one and could point me in the right direction, I would be most grateful. Further, the kind folks at Kikkerland Design have offered to help me on my quest, by donating an Anatomical Eye 3-D Puzzle to any person who can help me acquire a copy.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

I have long been a fan of the Agence Eureka blog; yesterday I made the leap to the associated Flickr page, which is a treasure trove of paper ephemera.The above images are from a Flickr set entitled "Anatomie Femme 1939;" check out the complete set here.